Garnering Votes in New Hampshire

Today I was with my group (NashuaPeace.org) at Christopher Dodd's outdoor campaign stop on the steps of Nashua City Hall (town I live in). Dodd is polling in insignificant digits in NH so the crowd was not too large - about 50 people. But it reminded me of the flavor of the real NH presidential primary politics. Aides were literally begging people who came sort of the close to the venue to come and sit down and see Dodd "up close" which they told them "was the real way to see and hear Dodd". And NH voters being NH voters they politely declined, and from where they were seriously listened to and evaluated the candidate. NH voters really take the job of whetting the candidates seriously. On the busy main streets cars and trucks whizzed by, life went on as usual, and Dodd spoke, sometimes raising his voice to be heard above the traffic. It is humbling and exhilarating to see a candidate really beholden to the voters. Which is typically the case during the primaries in NH, its just that during this election the star value of Clinton and Obama (not to mention the secret service armour around the former) sometimes make one think times of changed. Generally at this stage of the primary season people get 50-100 people at most at campaign stops, giving the real feel of trying to win every vote. And boy, do candidates appear different compared to how they come across on TV! Voting without personally interacting with the candidates seems almost meaningless :-) Dodd apparently is focusing his campaign on the notion of "National Service", where everyone, especially youngsters, take time to volunteer - in everything ranging from the peace corp to spending time at the local hospice. He talked about making it a mandatory part of high school, like it apparently is in Maryland. He presented it as the way to unite America, etc. etc. Interestingly, it is the "Asha view", though personally I think it is naive to think that volunteering will change the world's or a nation's problems. The whole event revolved around this theme - he was presented to the audience by a local youth who had started a non-profit to give access to Arts education for disadvantaged children, and in general there were lots of youngsters amongst his aides.After his talk he worked his way through the crowd, and we (the Nashua Peace group) wondered whether he would come up to us. It appeared as though he would skip us, so I and another member decided to walk up to him. I asked him, "if elected President would you look at peaceful solutions or be hawkish", to which he answered, "always peaceful solutions first", and then I said "I vote for peace", and he assured me he did too. :-) He then decided to walk over to the Nashua Peace group and of course the media followed him which was nice, because it gave us exposure.